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Tuesday 20 October 2026
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
Site updated on 19 October 2026
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Laser Squad
Videogame (1988). Target Games (TG). Designed by Julian Gollop. Platforms: C64, Spectrum (1988); Amiga, Amstrad, AtariST (1989); DOS (1992). / Laser Squad is a turn-based Computer Wargame with a two-dimensional overhead view whose subject is combat between small groups of soldiers on the surfaces of alien worlds. Its game mechanics greatly resemble those of squad level ...
Goldin, Stephen
(1947- ) US author, married to Kathleen Sky 1972-1982, and to Mary Mason from 1987. He began publishing sf with "The Girls on USSF 193" in If for December 1965 and was runner-up for a Nebula for Best Short Story with "The Last Ghost" (in Protostars, anth 1971, ed David Gerrold & Stephen Goldin). After ...
Whitlock, Vaughan
(1950- ) Australian author now in New Zealand whose anti-Feminist Dystopian Satire, Human Stock (2001), posits a distant Near Future world with women taking advantage of their dominance by created a state of Slavery for men, who are Cloned to fit into ...
Lawhead, Stephen R
(1950- ) US author of Christian Fantasy (see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, which also see for entry on this author); permanently in the UK from about 1991. He began writing work of genre interest with the Dragon King fantasy trilogy beginning with In the Hall of the Dragon King (1982); a later fantasy sequence, the Pendragon Cycle, beginning with Taliesin (1987), Christianizes ...
Foreman, Russell
(1921-2000) Australian author of a Near Future Disaster novel, The Ringway Virus (1976), in which a virus-based Pandemic 100% fatal to humans threatens to terminate the species; there is some small chance that isolated breeding couples will survive. [JC]
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book ...